Challenge Award #1 Project Title:
Target ONECUT2: Towards Understanding Functional Enablers of Small Cell Lineage Plasticity
Project Overview:
SCNPC is a highly aggressive prostate cancer subtype that is resistant to all current therapies and has poor patient outcomes. Dr. Rubin and team will identify the genomic and molecular drivers of SCNPC and explore therapeutic strategies for reversing or targeting the SCNPC phenotype. This may lead to new effective treatments for this highly lethal form of prostate cancer.
Principle Investigators:
University of Manchester
Robert Bristow, PhD
Weill Cornell Medicine
Marcin Imielinski, PhD, MD
Additional Investigators:
University of Bern
Laura Brandt, PhD
Challenge Award #2 Project Title:
Lipid metabolism in metastatic prostate cancer
Project Overview:
Despite recent advances, metastatic prostate cancer remains to be a life-threatening disease state and new treatments are urgently needed. By taking a unique, parallel-development approach of therapeutic agents, Dr. Horvath and team will be able to address an unmet need in metabolic targeting in prostate cancer. Dr. Horvath’s results will be rapidly translatable to existing clinical management and trials, and will also underpin future clinical trials to test the efficacy of novel agents targeting lipid metabolic vulnerabilities in metastatic prostate cancer.
Principle Investigators:
South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute
Lisa Butler, PhD
Additional Investigators:
Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute
Pete Meikle, PhD
South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute
Zeyad Nassar, PhD
University of Oxford Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences
Ian Mills, PhD
Queensland University of Technology School of Biomedical Sciences
David Waugh
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Medical Oncology
Christopher Sweeney, MBBS
Monash University Eastern Health
Ian Davis, MBBS, PhD
Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland
Silke Gillessen, MD
Peter MacCullum Cancer Centre Medical Oncology
Arun Azad, MBBS, PhD
St. Vincent’s Hospital The Kingdom Cancer Centre
Anthony Joshua, MBBS, PhD
University of South Australia Centre for Cancer Biology
Stuart Pitson, PhD
Garvan Institute of Medical Research The Kinghorn Cancer Center
Hui-Ming Lin, PhD
Challenge Award #3 Project Title:
Targeting the autocrine Semaphorin 3C growth factor pathway in metastatic, lethal prostate cancer with B1SP, a novel therapeutic fusion protein
Project Overview:
Although androgen receptor pathway inhibitors (ARPIs) are effective therapies, metastatic prostate cancer remains a lethal disease as cases often develop resistance to ARPIs. Through bioinformatical analysis, Dr. Ong has identified the autocrine SEMA3C as a key driver and a promising tractable target in metastatic prostate cancer patients. The success of Dr. Ong’s study will result in a new, effective first-in-class precision medicine for treatment of metastatic prostate cancer and identify the mechanisms which lead to ARPI resistance.
Principle Investigators:
Additional Investigators:
University of British Columbia
Martin Gleave, MD
Yuzhuo Wang, PhD
Lucia Nappi, MD, Phd
Harvard University
Steven Balk, MD, PhD
Challenge Award #4 Project Title:
Investigating Biological Drivers and Clinical Consequences of A Novel Hypermethylated Subtype of Metastatic Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC)
Project Overview:
While genomic and transcriptional drivers of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) have been extensively described, the epigenetic landscape of this disease state is less understood. Dr. He and team have demonstrated that DNA methylation tightly regulates androgen receptor (AR) pathways, and such methylation patterns define unique molecular subtypes in mCRPC. Dr. He will investigate the biological basis of a mCRPC subtype with mutations in genes involved in DNA methylation. Dr. He’s study will result in novel methods to personalize the treatment of mCRPC, and will generate a tremendous resource for the prostate cancer research community. These results will also be applicable to other cancer fields, as hypermethylated subtypes have already been described in other malignancies such as acute myeloid leukemia, glioblastoma, and colorectal cancer.
Principle Investigators:
University of California, San Francisco
Felix Feng, MD
Eric Small, MD
David Quigley, PhD
Additional Investigators:
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
Sujun Chen, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
Martin Sjöström, MD, PhD
Junjie Tony Hua, PhD
Challenge Award #5 Project Title:
Biomarker profiling in oligo-metastatic prostate cancer – interactions between systemic therapy and radiotherapy in the STAMPEDE trial
Project Overview:
Dr. James will focus on identifying novel markers that are predictive of a benefit or lack of benefit from prostate radiotherapy. Dr. James’s new study will also build on the STAMPEDE trial platform, further extending the range of analyses and link to new treatment modalities for prostate radiotherapy in metastatic disease. Using this integrative data, the team will also be constructing an online tool for use by clinicians and patients, better improving treatment selection and outcomes for men worldwide.
Principle Investigators:
University College London Department of Oncology
Gerhardt Attard, PhD
ICR Cancer Therapeutics
Bissan Al-Lazikani, PhD
Additional Investigators:
The Royal Marsden/ICR
Julia Murray, PhD
Katharina Von Loga, PhD
ICR Genetics and Epidemiology
Ros Eeles
Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust Urology
Noel Clarke, PhD
University College London Department of Oncology
Emily Grist, PhD
University of Warwick Department of Computer Science
Nasir Rajpoot, PhD
University College London
Christopher Brawley, MSc
Marina Parry, PhD
Mahesh Parmar, PhD
Paolo Cremaschi, PhD
University of Cambridge Department of Surgery and Oncology
Vincent Gnanapragasam, PhD, MBBS
The University of Warwick
Shan E. Ahmed Raza, PhD, MSc
University of Michigan Cancer Center
Daniel Spratt, MD
Barts and the London NHS Trust
Daniel Berney, MBBS
The University of Manchester
Syed Adnan Ali, MBBS
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
Aine M Haran
University of California, San Francisco
Felix Feng, PhD
Decipher Biosciences Leadership team
Elai Davicioni, PhD